Posted on 08/28/2010 6:47:31 PM PDT by SLB
thanks very much.
1st division, 1965-66, Bien Hoa, camp Bearcat
thanks very much. proud vietnam vet
1st division, 1965-66, Bien Hoa, camp Bearcat
Popman—Thank you.
I dropped out after my Rat Year at VMI, killed termites for a year, then volunteered - no idea why, lottery number probably would have been OK. Came from a seafaring family, mostly Navy, so I enlisted there in ‘72. Had always admired the stories of the Corpsmen, so I signed up there.
First ship a sub tender - boring: swapped with a guy in the Gator Fleet on an LST, made two West Pac cruises, the first one including action off the coasts of Cambodia and Vietnam when they fell - three months of hostile fire pay, Combat Action Ribbon and such, but never really felt the right to call myself a Vietnam Vet without having been in country. Others might disagree, but that's just my personal take on things.
The guys who were “in country” were the real VN Vets, IMO, and it never bothered me that I got no thanks or honor when I came home. I never counted myself among them, nor thought much of my “service” to the country until a rally in a small, largely Hispanic town in northern New Mexico right after 9/11.
They asked all the Veterans in the crowd to come up on the stage, where we all got enormous applause, which was nice. But as I again left the stage to resume my place in the crowd people just kept coming up to me and embracing me and thanking me tearfully for my service. It went on for a long time, and I couldn't stop crying.
I still tear up thinking about it, that someone, anyone, especially Americans from a different ethnic group, ever bothered to personally thank me, even years later, and even though I did so little compared to others. I pass the thanks I received on to you vets who really deserved it.
Litekeeper
US Army (ret)
Thanks, SLB. Welcome Home!
Dad has actually compiled a series of bound journals that document his entire military career. I'm sure there's one that covers his war experiences in Vietnam.
When I last visited with him in April this year, he showed me some of the early ones. They brought back a flood of memories for me.
He's intensely proud of his military career, and so are all of his children. Thanks for the tip.
I got choked up reading your post.
Thank you for your service, Dag. You’ve earned all of our thanks because you were there, and you would have done whatever your country asked of you. That’s enough for us.
Same here. Turning circles on the gun line and bobbing up and down at Point Yankee wasn't really the same experience as slogging through the rice paddies, and my very best to those who did.
"What Is A Vietnam Veteran?" Old. ROTFLMAO!
We used to call the National Defense Medal I received in 1991 as the DOD Award (Defender of the Drydock) or the CNN Award for watching the Gulf War on tv. Like you I just did my job, crossed the arctic circle, passed through the Straits of Gibralter and never felt like I’d done anything special.
20 years later I appreciate our military and the people serving in it far more than I ever did when I wore the uniform.
Guys, Please don’t forget the Coast Guard, we were there as well. We had EOD personnel, patrol boats and participated in Operation Markettime.
Did you just write this or sometime ago? 30 Years ago would put you there in l980.
What about the several thousand U.S. COAST GUARD that served in Viet Nam???
Thanks, Windflier. After our recent disagreements, your post means a lot to me. Let’s stay on good terms - we’re on the same side in this thing. :)
Myth 3: The suicidal grunt
Source: The support group Disabled American Veterans published a 1980 pamphlet, “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders of the Vietnam Veteran,” stating that the number of all Vietnam veterans who had committed suicide had reached 58,000 the number of overall U.S. deaths in the war.
That estimate quickly grew. A broadcast of CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Oct. 4, 1986, put the number at more than 100,000. Less than 10 years later, a California chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America projected it to be “approximately 150,000.”
Reality: Exact numbers are unknown. Suicide, with its social stigma, is notoriously difficult to pin down.
The 58,000 figure was based on an assumption that the suicide rate during the initial postwar period had continued unabated. Instead, it dramatically slackened. In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control conducted the most extensive study to date on this issue. It found that the risk of suicide increased with exposure to combat. Still, the CDC concluded that the overall rate for Vietnam-theater veterans is roughly one per 100 veteran deaths. This would bring the current total to about 6,500.
Michael Kelley, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Sacramento, has spent years tracking the wildly varying suicide estimates.
“In the final analysis,” Kelley wrote in a 1999 Washington Post story, “Vietnam veterans likely die from suicide at about the same rate and for the same reasons that everyone else in America does.”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051111/news_lz1n11vets.html
Thanks for this.
Welcome home, Nam Vets.
Carry on!
We’ll “Carry on”.
Great post, thanks. I served 64-68, but never went over there.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for your service
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